Head Of Corporate Affairs in
Madrid

Job Description

Background

Deliveroo is one of Europe’s fastest
growing companies and its last funding round confirmed it as one of the
few UK ‘unicorns’. The business grew at 650% in 2016 and is now present
in 12 countries (across Western Europe, Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore
and Dubai) and in over 200 cities. Deliveroo works with 35,000
restaurants worldwide; 30,000 riders; and has over 1,000 staff in its
headquarters and country operations.

The communications and policy team is
a vital part of the business. It is this team’s job to effectively
communicate the positive impact Deliveroo is having for customers,
restaurants and riders, by offering the flexible on demand work people
want and bringing world-leading food to people when and where they want
it. Thea Rogers is the company’s VP of comms and policy and sits on the
management team. She oversees oversees policy, public affairs, corporate
and consumer comms, events and visits and stakeholder communications.
She spent the past year building up a strong central team, but now wants
to grow that team by adding communications and public affairs
specialists in market.

Working in corporate affairs in
Deliveroo means being involved early in decisions at Deliveroo regarding
policy and operational matters. There is a clear acknowledgement that
communications at Deliveroo is not about producing a press release once
decisions are made but rather about helping the business gets its
proposition right, for consumers, riders and all stakeholders, and about
coming up with proactive positive ideas to tell Deliveroo’s story.
Furthermore the company is doing something brand new, and with that come
questions from policy-makers and opinion formers with whom Deliveroo
wishes to engage.

The Role

The role spans a wide remit which
requires exceptionally strong judgement and an appetite for large
quantities of work at a very important time for the business.

The role will help to shape the
global communications strategy and implement that strategy in Spain. The
role leads on all corporate-related media communications in Spain,
reporting on a daily basis to the global Director of Communications in
HQ and working closely with the General Manager for Spain, as well as
the Heads of Operations and Commercial Directors in both countries. On a
day-to-day basis, the role also involves working closely with the
Global Head of Public Affairs and the local legal teams.

The role involves being the lead on
all reactive media for Spain, as well as planning and delivering
proactive interventions each month, managing an external communications
agency, and advising the company on the communication implications of
policy and operational decisions. The role will be central to the
positioning of Deliveroo in both countries’ media markets.

Vitally, the role will also lead on
all political and stakeholder engagement for the company, including with
Government Ministers and officials, Parliamentarians, trade unions and
employer and other business groups. Public debate over the ‘gig’ economy
is growing and it is vital that Deliveroo’s arguments are heard. This
role will set the strategy for and execute the company’s stakeholder
relations plan, briefing the General Manager and other senior staff as
appropriate, as well as acting as a spokesperson for the company in
senior meetings.

The role will be part of determining
how Deliveroo leads the technology sector in engaging with issues such
as ‘The shape of the future of work’; how the gig economy actually works
and is different from the historic employment based economy; how people
feel about the growing role of algorithms and automation – these are
all present and Deliveroo intends to play a positive and leading role in
the debate. For example, in the debate about the future of work, the
business went public with its views, calling for an overhaul of current
legislation to end the trade off between flexibility and security in
work.

Essential ingredients for the right candidate for the head of corporate affairs role will be:

An appetite for work. The hyper pace of Deliveroo’s business and the development of its issues means this is a ‘full on’ job.

An
enthusiasm for up to the minute, difficult media issues. This includes a
desire to pick up the phone to journalists and to form strong
relationships with them. Business editors, political journalists and
tech correspondents are all highly relevant.

Excellent, thoughtful judgement.

Experience in crisis communications.

A
proactive attitude and a desire to learn about and help make decisions
right across the business, from commercial and operational decisions to
HR policies.

A genuine desire to help others in a collaborative way, in a fast-growing business.

An
excitement which comes from being at the cutting edge of new
developments in the global economy and working for a market leader which
is expanding at record pace.

A strong understanding of the political context in Spain and good pre-existing relationships with political stakeholders.

A good
understanding of the complexity of policy and societal issues which
Deliveroo may be involved in, and a desire to ‘shape the debate’ with
Deliveroo’s work.

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